The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the Global Arena

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is one of the oldest and most influential Islamist movements in the Sunni world. The organization has offered an ideological framework and organizational model for a wide variety of Islamist movements and parties, from Morocco to Indonesia. The evolution of the Brotherhood since 1928 has been marked by tensions around three questions: whether and how to participate in politics, whether violent tactics are justified, and what it means to pursue an Islamic state. These ideological debates have occurred against a background of internal fragmentation, the need to go underground during repression, and regional dynamics drawing the Brotherhood’s attention outward. These issues came to the forefront once again after the 2011 uprisings, which catapulted the Muslim Brotherhood to the forefront of Egyptian politics. Since the 2013 military coup in Egypt, the Brotherhood has been severely repressed and organizationally weak, and it has become entangled in the geopolitical frictions of the region, while undergoing important internal debates not only about the future of the movement but also about the nature and role of Islamism in politics. The future of the Brotherhood remains an open question and is bound to leave a mark on the future of political Islam.